Books like Vivian Grey by Benjamin Disraeli

Pride and Prejudice is a classic novel by Jane Austen.

Mark Twain’s classic novel follows the first-person narration of Huckleberry "Huck" Finn as he journeyes down the Mississippi River in 19th‑century America, exploring adventure, friendship and the era’s social issues.

Set in north England, Jane Eyre follows an orphaned governess who faces abuse, hardship, and ultimately a complicated love with her employer, Edward Rochester, while contemplating marriage to her austere cousin St. John Rivers.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, first appearing as a novella in 1890 and expanded into a full novel in 1891.

Stephen Dedalus’s coming‑of‑age journey in Dublin frames his transformation from bullied youth to aspiring artist, as he distances himself from conventional life.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay follows 19‑year‑old Josef Kavalier, a Prague refugee who arrives in 1939 New York and partners with his cousin Sammy to create a comic‑book hero, the Escapist, while fighting fascism, navigating family, identity and the rapidly changing world of 20th‑century mass media.

Set in the 1830s Midlands, George Eliot’s Middlemarch intertwines village life, politics, and the struggles of its characters to explore social reform, gender roles, and community hypocrisy.

Three feckless young men embark on a light‑hearted rowing holiday along the Thames in 1888, creating a series of humorous misadventures.

A coming‑of‑age narrative set in 19th‑century England, following young David Copperfield as he navigates orphanhood, hardship and society’s social hierarchies.

A social satire of Regency England in which Becky Sharp’s ambition and Amelia’s love clash amid class intrigue, military battles and the coveted Waterloo, while Dobbin’s devotion offers a counterpoint to the era’s snobbery.

In the aftermath of the Hundred Years' War, Thomas of Hookton seeks the Grail while navigating war, heresy, and plague across 14th‑century England and Gascony.

Evelina is a comic novel of manners that follows a young London debutante as she navigates the social world of 18th‑century England, learning wit, confidence, and the subtleties of love.

A foundling named Tom Jones is raised by a benevolent landowner, growing into a kind-hearted young man whose love affair with a well-born daughter sparks class conflict. The novel, one of the first English-language works, explores themes of prostitution and promiscuity.

When their father orders it, brothers Charles and Addington Gaunt embark on an American wagon train to find their missing sibling, guided by the seasoned frontiersman Jerry Potts, confronting both physical dangers and personal demons along the way.

George Meredith’s early satirical novel, The Egoist, explores the hollowness of romantic courtship through sharp psychological observation and biting irony.

Reads like prequel to Suite Francaise, but is a perfect novel in its own right - a gripping story of family life, of money and love, set against the backdrop of France in two terrible world wars.In haunting ways this wonderful, compelling novel prefigures Suite Francaise and some of the themes of Nemirovsky's great unfinished sequence of novels. All Our Worldly Goods, though, is complete, and exquisitely so – a perfect novel in its own right. First published in France in 1947, after the author's death, it is a gripping story of family life and starcrossed lovers, of money and greed, set against the backdrop of France from 1911 to 1940 between two terrible wars.Pierre and Agnes marry for love against the wishes of his parents and the family patriarch, the tyrannical industrialist Julien Hardelot, provoking a family feud which cascades down the generations. This is Balzac or The Forsyte Saga on a smaller, more intimate scale, the bourgeoisie observed close-up with Nemirovsky's characteristically sly humour and clear-eyed compassion. Full of drama and heartbreak, telling observation of the devastating effects of two wars on a small town and an industrial family, this is Nemirovsky at the height of her powers. The exodus and flow of refugee humanity through the town in both wars foreshadows Suite Francaise, but differently, because this is Northern France, near the Somme, and the town itself is twice razed. Taut, evocative and beautifully paced, the novel points up with heartbreaking detail and clarity how close were those two wars, how history repeated itself, tragically, shockingly... It opens in the Edwardian era, on a fashionable Normandy beach, and ends with a changed world, under Nazi occupation.